It is known in the art to subdivide a base station for a wireless communication network, such as a cellular radio access network, into a baseband processing device and at least one radio head connected to the baseband processing device. Typically, the base station comprises a cluster of multiple radio heads connected to the baseband processing device. Usually, optical links are used in order to connect the remote radio heads to the baseband processing device. An interface used for the communication between the baseband processing device and the radio head has been specified (Common Public Radio Interface, CPRI).
This base station architecture including baseband processing devices and remote radio head has recently been extended by introducing mechanisms for distributing baseband processing tasks among a plurality of baseband processing devices. This mechanism allows to build a pool of baseband processing devices that performs baseband processing tasks for a comparatively high number of remote radio heads. Pooling of baseband processing device allows for increasing the utilisation of the baseband processing devices and therefore reducing the total number of baseband processing devices needed to process a certain amount of communication traffic handled by a radio access network. In addition, the deployment of the baseband processing devices can be centralised. As a consequence, installation and operation of a radio access network with a pool of baseband processing devices is more cost efficient than a radio access network that has a fixed assignment of baseband processing tasks to the individual baseband processing devices.